It doesn't have to be like this.
On sticking around to build a better world and refusing to debate our humanity.
Vol. 21
ESSAY | NOW READ THIS | LISTEN UP | FINAL FRAME
Every other post these days is "My dream is to live in [remote place] with my [SO/animals/friends]" I'm guessing because society is kind of terrifying right now for anyone who isn't a complete asshole.
But that means there are enough of us who want a better world to make one. I’m holding onto that thought extra hard this week, in light of a seemingly endless torrent of bad news.
It doesn’t have to be like this.
~
I’ve often dreamed of the friend commune–finding some land and building a few small houses and common buildings, gardens, play space, and so on–where me and my closest buds can live with our families in peace and mutual dependence. It’s a good dream.
I realize that what I’m describing, though, already exists. It’s community. It’s a neighborhood or village. It’s what just about all of us want, in the end. It’s how humans evolved in the first place, why we were so successful in the first place: cooperation with each other and living in harmony with nature.
So many of us are just yearning for a healthier world, one where we can be our full selves and have our basic needs met without much fuss. There is enough to go around. Even now, with 8 billion of us. The problem is distribution.
You’d think this desire for fairness, for something like balance, would be uncontroversial. Yet there are just enough people in positions of power and influence who would rather focus their time and energy on spreading a mindset of fear and scarcity, of distracting from their greed by fire-hosing absolute bullshit at the world, that the rest of us are forced to keep up a relentless defense just to stay alive.
Imagine what we could accomplish if people were allowed simply to live. Imagine what’s been lost because so many brilliant, creative, hard working people have instead been made to spend their time on Earth trying to convince others of their humanity. Or who never got to do even that, because they were abused, neglected, maimed, or murdered instead.
~
Things have been out of balance for a long time. And right now it feels like the pace of enshittification is accelerating, especially if you’re part of any kind of marginalized group. The New York Times (and far too much of mainstream media) has been taken over by bigots with a specific focus on spreading anti-queer, anti-trans misinformation. Same goes for so many state legislatures. Cops have killed 1,174 people so far in 2023. We’ve had more mass shootings so far this year than days, and mass shootings have skyrocketed generally in the past few years. Big companies make billions in profit by destroying the environment, oppressing their employees, and refusing to pay their fair share in taxes. Insecure, entitled strongmen wage pointless wars.
~
I don’t want to “debate” my humanity or the humanity of others. I don’t want to “debate” whether or not people have the right to live their most authentic lives, to drink clean water and breathe clean air, to have a roof over their heads and access to basic medical care and a good education. To not be harassed or have violence done to them simply for existing and trying to go about their day.
What is there to debate? Why waste our one wild and precious life arguing something that should be self-evident? I resent that we’re being made to, day in and day out, when we’ve got better things to do–better worlds to build.
But that’s the thing: It takes work to build. It takes cooperation. It takes speaking up and fighting back and collectively dreaming something into reality that wasn’t there before. Running away to an isolated commune sounds all well and good until I realize how much I’d miss so many other people and how diminished my life would be without a larger community. I also don’t know how to build a house.
I bet if we put our heads together, though, we could figure it out.
Now Read This.
“When it comes to anti-trans bills, how much panic is too much panic?” [Jude Ellison S. Doyle for Xtra]
Constant legislative attacks are damaging trans people’s mental health. How do reporters inform the public without telling them they’re doomed?
“The Man Who Invented Himself” [David Roth for Defector]
Beyond the freakish vastness of his dishonesty, what’s compelling about [George] Santos is the extent to which his personal scuzziness, as expressed through his aspirational scamming and cheesy little grifts alike, so fully embodies the institutionalized lawlessness of his movement and its moment.
“When Gig Workers Inadvertently Become Care Workers” [s.e. smith for The Conversationalist]
Sometimes, there is no good choice, because of decisions society has made about whose life has value and should be accommodated. This is a no-win exploitation situation, and it’s one many disabled people who need these services find profoundly unjust. Some people like to evoke “no ethical consumption under capitalism” here, misusing the phrase to suggest there’s nothing to be done and we should all throw up our hands. But perhaps people who commonly opine on how we are collectively trapped in capitalist systems that we can only escape through collaboration should acknowledge that when they are targeting disabled people for being trapped in, and relying upon, those systems.
“What’s the Matter with (Right-Wing) Men?” [Jill Filipovic]
Very few people are going to flat-out say “I hate women.” But a lot of them, apparently, will associate women with hated behaviors, and if asked in the right way they will signal their general dislike of women, who they see as overly-sensitive, irresponsible and immoral, ruining the natural order of things, and in need of male authority.
“Backlash Comes for the Right-Wing Culture War in Small Town Wisconsin” [Dan Shafer]
The story being told through conservative media was a distorted depiction, a clear misinformation campaign. An incomplete narrative about this controversial investigation was built and pushed to conservative media by the hyper-litigious far-right group, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL).
Reporter Mario Koran of Wisconsin Watch has exhaustively detailed what happened in Kiel. And in an in-depth report published in July 2022, attorney Luke Berg of WILL admitted on the record that their group had withheld details of the investigation when the narrative of the story was pushed to conservative media outlets like Newsmax and Laura Ingraham of Fox News.
“Why Is the New York Times So Obsessed With Trans Kids?” [Tom Scocca for Popula]
This is pretty obviously—and yet not obviously enough—a plain old-fashioned newspaper crusade. Month after month, story after story, the Times is pouring its attention and resources into the message that there is something seriously concerning about the way young people who identify as trans are receiving care. Like the premise that the Clintons had to have been guilty of something serious, or that Saddam Hussein must have had a weapons program worth invading Iraq over, the notion that trans youth present a looming problem is demonstrated to the reader by the sheer volume of coverage. If it’s not a problem, why else would it be in the paper?
“Free Speech Enthusiast Matt Yglesias Refers to Book Bans as ‘Identity Politics for Librarians’" [Parker Molloy for The Present Age]
Where’s the “Harper’s Letter” about the states enacting laws restricting speech? Where’s the “Harper’s Letter” that makes clear that whatever beliefs you have about “cancel culture,” state-sponsored censorship is a much more extreme version of that? Because, hey, I’m going to be honest! It’s started to seem like a bunch of the people who signed that letter don’t care so much about free speech as they care about the ability to openly advocate against a group of people’s civil rights and stoke a moral panic without receiving criticism from people on the internet. I really wish they’d just come out and say that.
Listen Up.
Beloved Madison weirdo’s Cribshitter put out a new video for their song, “Crystal City,” and it’s a low-key bop:
My band, Damsel Trash, will be making our triumphant return from a pandemic-induced hiatus with two upcoming shows: April 1 at Gold Sounds in Brooklyn, New York, and on May 6 at the Crystal Corner Bar in Madison, Wisconsin. Hope to see you there!
Played my first DJ gig in awhile recently for a queer dance party and finally remembered to record it.
You can listen to the full set of house/deep house/very gay house here.
‘Til next time.
Thanks for reading! Hit me up with questions, comments, suggestions, and tips on great hiking spots. And please feel free to forward this email to a friend and/or hit that subscribe button. xoxo